


dianthus caryophyllus

by Molnija



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: ... on-screen dead character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt No Comfort, LOOK THIS SPAWNED FROM A DREAM DON'T QUESTION ME, M/M, Off-screen Character Death, POV Second Person, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), but better safe than sorry right, dimitri lives but at what cost, graphic depictions of violence tag may be a bit of a stretch, nobody is happy everybody dies, oh boy how do i even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 07:44:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molnija/pseuds/Molnija
Summary: You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	dianthus caryophyllus

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: this came to me in a really fucked up incoherent dream so please have mercy on me I'm just trying to make it somewhat??? coherent without losing the Coolness Factor
> 
> this could be post SS/maybe even CF too but it's VW now cause I had to pick one
> 
> if this feels like a disjointed mess of a fever dream then good because that's exactly what I'm going for. honestly parts of these are taken from other WIPs I had flying around and just kinda yeeted (yote?) in there to give it that extra feeling of "what the fuck is going on". also I enjoy feral!Dima greatly because I have a hidden appreciation for a good ol' fictional massacre so if you're not good with violence you should probably be careful because while it may not be super graphic, it's definitely. in this
> 
> I'm probably the only one who will get any sort of enjoyment out of this but hey ... that's what fanwork is all about, you gotta like what you make and everyone else is just a bonus!!! ... unless they paid you.
> 
> (dianthus caryophyllus is the Latin name for carnations. red carnations as well as roses were what I had in mind for no reason other than they look cool I guess, but apparently my subconscious is smarter than me cause looking up the meanings it fits pretty well. good on ya, brain)

The rain pours on relentlessly. When you reach to touch it, it melts your skin like acid; by now, you are but torn flesh and broken bones, a creature that roams the world rather than a human, and every step is aching until you beg for it to stop, knowing that it never will.

It’s been three years, or so you’ve been told, since you died.

“This world,” says a woman whose voice is dripping with venom whom you’ve not yet heard today, though you’d wondered where she’d been, “is inhabited by monsters.”

She’s right. You’ve seen it. You’re seeing it even now, when you hide away in the shadows they don’t want you to know about, when the only thing you recognise is the sound of someone’s scream as you rip their heart out of their chest.

“The only way to survive is to become one yourself,” says another, kinder voice.

That one is not right. You’ve become a monster, and you’re anything but alive.

There’s a young woman with sad eyes standing in your peripheral vision, her chest bleeding from where the arrows are piercing it even through her armour. She doesn’t say anything.

You don’t say anything either. You just walk forward with legs that are half numb, half screeching in protest, all dripping with blood, be it your own or someone else’s.

* * *

You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.

Blossoms of crimson line the walls and creep out of the windows, a carpet of red trampled underneath the soles of those who dare go there.

People say, you think, that it serves as a grave for those who have nowhere to die.

Those who go out into the world and never return, whose names are never remembered when they fall in battle because they never cared to mention them.

Maybe someday you, too, will end up there, buried beneath those flowers.

For now, though, you need to find it not for your own sake, but for the person you’ve been searching for.

You’ve heard whispers of the ghost of a blade.

* * *

In a peaceful world, there is no need for killing.

So you know that the world is not peaceful when you chase the trail of blood they only ever mutter about, as if they were scared. Rumours of a solitary mercenary who takes no reward and charges into battle as though he was searching for death are what you cling to, overheard in shady taverns where nobody ever bothered to know your name.

You chase the trail of blood that should not exist, not anymore.

* * *

You don’t love death.

You don’t hate it, either.

It’s easy. Breaking someone’s neck with your bare hands, severing their head with a blade stolen from the lifeless body next to theirs, gouging out their eyeballs, or ripping out their spine – there are many ways to end a life, and you’ve familiarised yourself with all of them. It’s a necessity, more than anything.

The path you tread is made of corpses, and it’s one you’ve built yourself.

You’ve thrown away doubt and dignity years ago in exchange for the resolve to head forward. Anyone who stands in your way will be just another stepping stone – just another bloodstain on hands long dyed crimson.

“You’re useless,” a rough voice, young but jaded, mutters into your ear. “What is your excuse? You should have found him already.”

“Forgive me,” you say, knowing that he won’t.

There’s a young man with a wistful smile and his head split in two by the force of a powerful axe strike, sitting in a corner of the abandoned church you’ve made your home. He doesn’t say anything.

You wish he would.

* * *

You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.

It stands proudly, they say, even after all those years, by a lake in the mountains, where it’s too cold for most people to survive, and yet they bloom, and bloom evermore.

You’ve heard whispers of the ghost of a blade.

He, too, is blooming in crimson. He’s not unlike you, perhaps, though that thought is the most terrifying one of all. The last person you want to see with that look in their eyes is him.

In a peaceful world, he would be home. You would be home.

But this world is not peaceful, no matter what they’d have you believe.

* * *

“The king is dead,” says a young woman with platinum hair that you remember being darker, whether it be dripping with red or something else from a time long past.

“Long live the king?” muses her retainer in that tone you’ve always hated, as if he found pleasure in the suffering of others.

It’s funny how your skeletised hands are now the same colour as their armour.

You ram a knife into the right one and nothing seems to change.

* * *

This world is not peaceful, but in order to see that, you have to know where to look.

So you keep chasing the trail of blood that should not exist, and you’ve familiarised yourself with those who dwell in the shadows that should be alight, because you know that it’s where he’s going, too.

There aren’t many things you remember, but his eyes are among them.

Brown, unlike the piercing grey of his brother’s, warmer and softer than he ever was. Eyes that looked at you with admiration and then disdain, disgust even, and maybe some shade of regret from across the battlefield.

You have no right to see those eyes again.

But you have no right to be living, either, so what’s one more sin upon those you’ve already amassed?

None of those driven into the underground are friendly, and you feel no remorse cracking open the skulls of those who would dare attack you, but you do wonder whether you should leave them just barely alive for him to find.

“Pathetic,” spits a voice not unlike his.

* * *

You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.

You do not know where it is, nor what you would do once you get there. Die, possibly. Or tear it all apart, rip out the blossoms, dismantle the building stone by stone, until nothing of it is left.

But you keep looking for it.

You do not know why, or how it always aligns with the paths you choose to go anyway, through dirty alleyways and burnt-down forests. But you do.

You’ve heard whispers of the ghost of a blade.

You do not know if they speak the truth or if they are exaggerating, spinning stories from legends of long ago to keep themselves calm or frightened.

If you were to ever meet him again—

That young man and that young woman speak in unison.

“What would you say?”

* * *

He is alive, you know that. He has not yet joined the ranks of those who follow you every waking moment. So he is alive.

Though, to be fair, he could barely stand looking at you that day at Gronder Field.

Would he come to haunt you? Or would he stay away even after death, disgusted by everything he knows you’ve done?

* * *

“It’s no fair, Dima,” he says with a pout and his arms crossed over his chest. “Why does Glenn get to train with you? I’m your best friend!”

You laugh.

“Father keeps saying that too. But I’m just as good as he is.”

Somewhere in the distance, a bird cries out.

“You’re just mocking me! Come on, draw your sword. Right now! I’ll definitely beat you, and then they’ll have to acknowledge me!”

The training hall at the palace is empty, which is strange. It never is. There’s always at least one guard by the door.

“And don’t you dare hold back. I can handle myself. Accept my challenge!”

He’s right. Glenn may be stronger, but that’s mostly due to the age difference. One day, he, too, will be a glorious knight, undefeated and right by your side.

The rain pours on relentlessly.

* * *

The smell of blood has become a friend to you.

After all those years, ever since the massacre twelve years ago, you’ve become accustomed to it, and by now it’s almost inviting, like coming home to a warm fireplace after having been out in the snow for too long.

You know a battlefield when you come near it.

You’ve never been wrong about that. And right here, in the clearing of a forest high up in the mountains where you’re sure you would be freezing if you could feel anything at all, you find it.

One person is left standing when you arrive.

You have never seen them before, but you have seen the one on the ground in front of them.

You do not know how you kill them. In one moment you’re standing there looking at them, in the next you toss their lifeless body aside and sink to your knees, reach for his face with shaking hands.

Those warm eyes are open but not shocked, glassily staring into nothingness, and you close them as gently as a monster could.

* * *

You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.

Its ceiling is torn off much like the one at the monastery’s cathedral was, and the walls are crumbling down, but you still think it is beautiful. Nature has woven itself into the stone structure, carpeted the floor in red petals, painted the walls with leaves, and the statues of grotesque animals and imposing saints are bleeding flowers.

You carry his body as you ascend the stairs, as you know you shouldn’t, as you know he’d hate you for. Even so, you cannot stop yourself.

There are names, somewhere in the far back of your mind, to the ghosts that tail you. You don’t remember any of them, but you do know how they died.

The thought that he would become one of them sends jolts of pain through your body like you thought you couldn’t feel them anymore.

Once upon a time, he loved you.

Even now, you love him.

And yet, you couldn’t save him, like you couldn’t save your precious friends.

You’ve heard whispers of a castle overgrown with flowers.

People say, you think, that it serves as a grave for those who have nowhere to die.

**Author's Note:**

> ??? was my mood writing this but I promise it was cool and deep in my dream okay I'm just trying my best here
> 
> [Tumblr](https://ohmaekumiko.tumblr.com/)


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